ST. PAUL, Minn. – The #3 Concordia Golden Bears volleyball team (16-4, 10-1 NSIC) put together a historic offensive performance as CSP set the program record with a .600 hitting percentage in a sweep of Minot State (9-11, 3-8 NSIC) on Saturday night at Gangelhoff Center.
Incredibly, Concordia committed just three errors while hammering out 51 kills on 80 attempts to finish with a record-setting mark of .600. The mark surpassed the previous school best of .591 set back on Nov. 12, 2016 against the Beavers of Bemidji State. It was a real group effort with all four hitters with at least 12 swings hitting .500 or better on the night.
CSP's defense held Minot State to .171 for the match while also picking up a 36-26 edge in digs as well as a 5.0-1.0 edge in blocks.
Sara Macek led the way with a historic effort of her own as she put up the seventh best individual hitting percentage in a match at CSP at .762 as she collected 16 kills with no errors on 21 attempts. Her 16 kills without an error was one shy of the team record for most kills without an error.
Hope Schiller added an even .500 hitting percentage with an impressive performance of her own as she put up 14 kills with two errors on 24 swings to go along with seven digs and a pair of aces.
Sydney Book and
Brooklyn Lewis each chipped in hitting percentages over .600 with nine kills as Book hit .667 and Lewis his .643.
Elizabeth Mohr guided the attack with 39 assists with three digs while
Tori Hanson collected over a third of the team's digs with 14 digs.
Jeanne Brenner led the Beavers with 10 kills as she was the lone Minot State player to reach double figures in kills.
With the win, Concordia moved to 9-0 in the all-time series with the Beavers as they picked up their eighth sweep in the nine meetings.
An early 6-1 run put the Golden Bears comfortable out front in the first set as they turned a 3-2 lead into a 9-3 lead. The Beavers battled back to within two at 10-8 and remained within three at 14-11 before a 7-0 burst pushed the lead to double figures for CSP at 21-11. The gap was cut in half following a 6-1 run for Minot State, but the final three points went in favor of Concordia to win the set 25-17.
Concordia got off to a fast start in the second set with seven of the first nine points as they led from start to finish. Following a 4-0 run for the Beavers midway through the set that cut the deficit to one at 12-11, the two teams traded points to keep the differential at one until the 14-13 mark. Six straight points for the Golden Bears put it out of reach as it turned a 14-13 edge to a 20-14 edge before CSP continued to add to their lead with a final score of 25-16.
It was much of the same in the third set as CSP opened on a 7-1 run before further opening the gap. With the lead still at six at 12-6, an 8-2 run doubled the advantage to 12 at 20-8. The Beavers managed just one more point the rest of the way as Concordia cruised to the sweep with a comfortable 25-10 win in the third.
The Golden Bears remain at home on Tuesday night with Minnesota State coming to town. First serve is scheduled for 6 p.m.
